When I analyze competitors I do a so called whois on the owner of the domain name, and all other contacts listed in the domain whois, to find out more about their background. Is the competitor a large cooperation, an individual, an organization ? This is important to know because it could keep you from trying to get more backlinks to your website than a company with a advertising budget that exceeds your annual income.

It also makes sense to check that information if you want to purchase a domain or contact a domain owner if he does not have a contact page anywhere on his website.

It’s actually pretty basic to find out the domain owner of a domain. All you need is one of the thousands whois scripts that are available on the Internet, you could for instance try this, this or this.

A lookup always looks the same no matter which script you are using. Listed are the Registrant, the administrative and technical contact. The registrant is the domain owner. You normally find an email and / or phone number in those records which you can use to contact the domain owner.